E Pluribus Unum

A/N - There are some mentions of torture and rape in this chapter, nothing graphic, mostly because I figure you all have imaginations. :) Kate didn\'t squick, so you\'re all probably safe.

Droxy - Thank you, yea, our Sev is a tetch possessive, isn\'t he?

Ghaeth - thank you, I liked the Artful Dodger coment too.

Shiv - Not to worry Shiv, your namesake will be coming to a sticky end eventually! There will be more plot twists coming up as soon as I clear up some Old Business. Mwa ha ha ha. Bless you for saying Kate isn\'t a Mary Sue, I have read so many of them that my greatest fear when I started writing this was that I would slip into it unthinkingly. I have agonized over her character trying to be certain she stayed human.

helen - No, bill and Kat never dated, she had already mentioned back in the Chapel of Dragons that she thought he was too young for her, though she didn\'t realize they were talking about the same Bill. Glad you are feeling better, sorry about your friends and family though, hope they all get better soon!

Chapter 35 – Past Regrets

Severus sat in Narcissa’s dining room watching the proceedings with detached interest. He had never been one for orgies and this wasn’t even a particularly original or entertaining one. Narcissa had put out suggestive food, made a few sly innuendos and then everyone had giggled, stripped and gone at it.

It was the perfect setting for a bacchanalia, he supposed. The glittering chandelier suspended by charms over the dining room table cast rainbow reflections across the skins of the revelers. The huge oak table with dra dragon carved legs was piled high with food and made an excellent centerpiece. The walnut paneling on the walls had been polished to a high gloss so no matter where you looked you could see the reflections of bodies in motion.

Severus observed, feeling cold and sad as he watched people he had once admired and wanted to emulate go through the motions of decadence without much evidence of real enjoyment. Lucius was banging Narcissa on the dining room table, surrounded by spilled food and wine, while she gave head to Franco who was puffing like a steam engine as he was thrusting into her mouth. They all looked vaguely bored.

When he was seventeen it would have been thrilling and enticing. He remembered waiting his turn for …what her ner name been? Lucille, Lucinda… he couldn’t remember. She had been a hanger-on, a Death Eater groupie; fifteen, with wide green eyes and red hair. They had passed her around like a cigarette ahey hey had all taken a drag. He wondered what had happened to the girl. He remembered the feeling of power in doing the forbidden, the thrill of taking the girl in front of everyone, not that anyone was paying attention. They were all too self-involved to notice any one else’s performance.

Voldemort sat in a chair nearby, watching the entertainment with every evidence of enjoyment, which, in the end, was all was was important. Keeping the bastard happy had been the only thought on Narcissa’s mind when she set up this party. All his predilections were being catered to: Drink, Debauchery and Denigration, the three D’s of Death Eater party fun.

Severus disciplined his mind away from the bitterness of his thoughts and tried to evince interest in Shiv’s torture of a Muggleborn witch. He was alternating rape and torture, pain and pleasure, moving towards that perfect balance when they would be indistinguishable from each other. Eventually she would beg for both, too far gone to understand what was happening to her.

Severus had never wanted this life; he had wanted safety, family, and power, to stop being everyone’s victim. Now he was utterly powerless to stop what was happening. He had no safety, he had a family he couldn’t openly love, and a double existence that had been slowly tearing him apart for almost twenty years.

Kathryn’s kisses lingered on his lips, her words of love, echoed in his ears and the memory of her gentle hands on his body kept him sane as the girl screamed her climax and began to sob.

Madam Gideon, Mr. Fenchurch and Miss Mangle entered the room. Miss Mangle was in ice blue satin robes with a pale white bow in her golden curls, Fenchurch was in tails and Madam Gideon wore a black, almost spinsterish high collared gown with sweeping skirts.

Fenchurch’s eyes swept the room hungrily; he looked like a starving man presented with a feast. Madam Gideon was expressionless as she moved to observe Shiv at work. Madam Gideon was like an automaton most of the time, cold and empty. Her eyes were flickering over the terrified girl, who was begging for mercy. There was nothing in her eyes, no anticipation, no interest, just the clinical gaze of a scientist conducting a rigorous experiment.

Miss Mangle’s gaze rested on Severus, a moment of perfect understanding passed between them and he knew that the party didn’t interest her either. Still, she had hungers that needed to be assuaged; he could almost feel her seeking sustenance, looking for a victim worthy of her appetites. His grestrested on Shiv for a moment and Miss Mangle shot him a look of amusement before crooking a finger at him.

Shiv abandoned the Muggleborn witch he was torturing to trot obediently after Miss Mangle. Madam Gideon lost interest as soon as Shiv left and drifted off to watch Bella doing unspeakable things to Dolohov with a leather flail.

Severus strode casually over to where the young woman hung limp in her restraints. Up close he recognized her -- she had been a Hufflepuff, he recalled, graduated two or three years ago. Damn it, what had her name been? It was something silly like, Dena Digger or some such… Della Duggan, that was it. He pressed his body against her, as though he were taking his turn with her, concealing his face from anyone who might be watching.

“Miss Duggan.” He whispered. Her head rose groggily and she looked at him blearily.

“Professor?” She sounded frightened, but not panicked. For a Hufflepuff she was holding up incredibly well.

“I am going to give you something to drink, you will fall asleep and then I will try to get you out of here. Do you understand?” He asked her in the same tone that he had asked her for her homework assignment or to serve detention and the very familiarity of his voice seemed to center her attention.

“Yes, Sir.” She drank the Draught of Living Death, recognizing it as soon as she tasted it. He remembered that as a potions student she had been less of a dunderhead than most and her look of quiet gratitude reminded him of why he came to these damnable parties in the first place.

He removed her restraints and propped her up, feeling her pulse slowing to a stop under his hands. Brown hair shot with copper streaks and matted with blood and filth tickled his ear as he watched her breath fade away. Her amber eyes went matte and he gave a manufactured sigh of disappointment.

“What’s wrong Severus?” Lucius was standing beside him, his voice purring in Severus’s ear. White blond hair draped over his nude body, the sculpted angles and curves that made up Lucius Malfoy bathed in the multi-colored lights from the chandelier. His gray eyes, so cold and unfocused, betrayed the fact that his seeming sanity was a thin layer of control over a yawning chasm of madness. One push and whatever was left of Draco’s father would tumble into the void.

“Shiv played a little too hard with her. She’s dead.” Severus managed a touch of annoyance mingled with cold detachment.

“Clumsy oaf. He never had your touch with torture, Severus.” Lucius was looking at him with fond remembrance and Severus, dredging a memory up of a time when he had enjoyed Lucius’ company, smiled back.

“I was never your equal in that, Lucius.” Severus replied with a faked humility that hid his inward horror. He knew that Mengele couldn’t have matched the icy perfection of Lucius at his worst. The cruel indifference that Lucius was capable of made Severus shiver in dread.

“You flatter me, Severus.” Lucius lapped up the praise hungrily and Severus reminded himself that while Lucius was easy to pander to, he was not as easy fooled in other areas. He gestured to the girl he was holding with his chin.

“The usual place?” He asked and Lucius nodded.

“Yes, the midden heap is the best place for her now; make certain Nott doesn’t see you leave with her, you know how he is.” Lucius frowned with distaste. Malfoys were never vulgar and Nott’s preference for …unmoving…partners was, in Malfoy’s book of vulgarity, a major faux pas.

“Indeed.” Severus put his own disgust into his voice and tossed the dead weight over his shoulder. Using a levitation charm would be less work, but it would also attract Nott’s attention. He was a bloodhound for that sort of thing.

Lucius ran interference for him, distracting attention away from his activities as Severus got the girl out of the dining room.

Parkinson was in the hallway, looking pale and shaken, Severus passed Fenchurch returning to the party and the shiver that ran through him at the other’s nearness had a primal fear at its core that flooded his stomach with acid terror.

Parkinson looked up; he had pale thinning blond hair and watery eyes, a weak chin and the pug nose he had gifted his daughter with. He was trembling from head to toe and his eyes when they rested on Severus were filled with loathing.

“Parkinson.” Severus found that his voice had gentled unexpectedly when he spoke to the man. Perhaps it was the memory of Parkinson’s daughter trembling and trying not to cry as he laid her on a bed in a darkened room. Guilt could be a powerful force.

“Snape.” It was there in the other man’s voice, a kind of defeated knowledge. Fenchurch must have told him.

“Give me a hand here, will you.” Severus called and after a moment Parkinson nodded and lifted the girl’s legs. Severus grabbed her around the torso and they carried her down to the kitchens. A house elf opened the metal grate that led to a short drop into an icy river that swept the trash and refuse out of Malfoy manor.

Severus palmed his spare port key into the girl’s pocket and lowered her into the noisy river. He told Parkinson to keep a watch for Nott and while his back was turned he muttered the activation key into the hole. A soft popping sound and the girl was safe with Kingsley. He slammed the grate shut to cover the lack of a splashing sound. Luckily, Parkinson was too shaken and upset to pay much attention so his rescue of the girl went unnoticed.

“Snape, can I talk to you?” Parkinson’s voice was filled with the expectation of rejection and there was a moment when Severus did think of saying no. Still, he had taken the man’s daughter, orders or not, and he did owe him at least the opportunity of letting Parkinson call him a bastard to his face.

“Certainly, Parkinson.” He replied with feigned indifference and followed him from the kitchens up to an unused parlor. The room was obviously one of Lucius’s masculine haunts. Framed hunt prints, lots of green leather, a big fireplace and brandy decanters gave it that stereotypical English drawing room look that only existed when interior designers tried to create something ‘British’ that would really only be enjoyed by American tourists.

The two men sat in matching leather armchairs in front of a roaring fire and Parkinson summoned a bottle of brandy and two glasses. They drank in silence while Parkinson tried to gather his thoughts. Finally he blurted his thoughts out.

“Did you rape my daughter?” Adam’s apple bobbing and voice quivering, Parkinson was close to tears.

“Our Lord ordered me to, Parkinson.” Again, he found his voice being far gentler than he had expected it to. Somewhere between his brain and his vocal chords there was a misfire.

“Was she all right?” It took Severus a moment to decipher the question, thinking for a moment that he was being asked about her qualities as a bed partner before he understood what was really being asked.

“Of course she wasn’t ‘all right’, Parkinson. I am twenty years her senior and her teacher as well.” The words came out sharply and he clamped down hard on the urge to shout at the other man. “I was as gentle as possible given the circumstances but I cannot see how she would not be traumatized by the experience.” He had shown some of his bitterness there and Parkinson met his eyes with an almost compassionate look.
was was so afraid you would gloat.” The weak little man admitted.

“She was one of my Slytherins; I have never before been forced to harm one of my own.” Severus admitted and felt the sharp acid taste of regret in the back of his throat.

“I did this to her, Snape.” Parkinson was staring into the fire with a grief-stricken look. “It was my involvement with the Dark Lord that brought her to that.” The admission had cost the other man; Severus could see it in his haunted eyes.

“We all have to serve, Parkinson, in one capacity or another.” It was the party line, but delivered with an expression of understanding and compassion at odds with the coldness of his tone. Parkinson nodded his comprehension of the sentiment and the implied warning beneath it. They all had to serve. The only other option was death and that was no real option; not when you knew that your death would leave your loved ones defenseless.

“I wish I could see her again, tell her how much I love her.” Severus watched him drink the brandy in slow measured sips. Even devastated and in pain, Parkinson was too much the Slytherin to get drunk in enemy territory.

Severus left him there, certain he would do nothing foolish and returned to the party. He wondered, though, how many would he have to kill to get justice for all those injured by Voldemort? How much blood would be required to wash away all these sins?